


Dash.

by Dxllhxuse



Category: Game Grumps, Kitty Kat Gaming, Ninja Sex Party - Fandom, Starbomb
Genre: Abandonment, F/M, Polygrumps, Road Trip, Runaway, Violence, age gap, alcohol mention, death mention, flapbang, ggbb2017, noncon/rape mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 13:35:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11692728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dxllhxuse/pseuds/Dxllhxuse
Summary: Suzy, a runaway teenager, embarks on a cross-country trip to California with the help of Dan, a travelling stranger, in order to find where she can finally call home. Feeling as if there’s nothing left for them in their hometowns, both attempt to start a new life, but face challenges along the way that make them question if what they’re doing is really the right thing to do.[accompanying art by trash-lovely on tumblr]





	1. Monachopsis

**Author's Note:**

> Monachopsis: the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place

_A whip and a bite._ The wind whipped against her face, the cold air biting her cheeks; it nipped her skin with a rabid hunger that was only sated by her determination. Suzy couldn’t turn back now--there was nothing left for her in Orlando, so she set her sights forward and walked.

She had only made it a mile or two before she sat on the side of the road, disheartened. She was beginning to believe that she wasn't capable of leaving on her own. Suzy had already made it several miles from home and as her feet blistered from walking, she thought.

Her life couldn't improve here. _She_ couldn't improve here. She was young and more than capable, this obstacle meant nothing to her. If she couldn't walk her way, she'd find an alternative. The darkening sky was a foreboding reminder that she was now alone--she couldn't return home.

She settled on a bench near a bus stop that seemed to have been uninhabited for the past decade or so, and with fear behind her closed eyelids, she solemnly attempted to sleep.

* * *

 

The hands that gripped onto her hips were foreign and the smell of alcohol that filled her nose was all too familiar. Her eyes shot open, the dark enveloping her for a second before she managed to see what was before her. A man, she couldn’t make out what race, was on top of her with hands that dug into her skin like needles and eyes that were as glazed over as glass. The scream that erupted from her chest was unlike any other--it burst from her and Suzy became a banshee. Her hands became claws and she scratched and flailed wildly, deterring her attacker fully.

He stumbled away from her and she scrambled backwards, her breath pushing past her lips fiercely as the scream continued. Her heart raced and she hastily grabbed her bag, making her away from the fleeing man and toward the distant light of a near abandoned gas station.

She pushed through the door forcefully, her breath still ragged from her quick departure. She startled the woman who was asleep at the countertop, causing her to propel herself upwards, her eyes wide open.

“Hi, may I help you?” she asked, her tone rushed yet maintaining an element of disinterest.

“Do you have knives?” Suzy demanded, one hand lightly gripping the strap to her backpack and the other firmly planted on the cold countertop. Her demeanor was uncomfortable yet persistent and she swallowed nervously as the cashier’s eyes scanned over her face.

“Wh-are you looking for hunting knives or a switchblade?” There was a tone of morbid curiosity lingering in the question; after all, who requests a knife at nearly 4 AM?

“Give me the biggest knife I can legally carry,” Suzy responded, her eyes flitting about as she ran a hand through her dishevelled hair. “I need to be able to protect myself.”

“Well there ain’t much to protect yourself against here-” the cashier began, slouching languidly against the countertop.

Suzy interrupted her, leaning forward with a ferocity burning behind her eyes. “Don’t even go there.” Her tone was harsh and shook the woman out of her daze, “I have been in this area for less than a day and have been attacked. Lay off and give me a knife. Please.”

The woman looked at her, eyes worried yet convinced. She reached beneath the counter, never breaking eye contact, and pulled out a hunter’s knife, placing it on the table hesitantly.

“That’s uh, fifteen dollars,” she said, a waver in her voice and hesitation in her demeanor.

Placing the money on the counter, Suzy grabbed the knife and whispered a thank you and a goodbye. She returned into the night air outside of the station and sank against the wall until she sat in the dim flickering lights above her. Her eyes, although feeling heavy, remained open and scanning the surrounding area. Her grip on the knife never loosened.

Again, she was determined to survive.

* * *

 

Suzy had stayed outside of that gas station into the early morning hours. Sleep had managed to evade her yet she didn’t feel nearly as exhausted as she had after waking to a man on top of her, touching her in ways no one had touched her since...him.

She walked down the road once more, hand on the knife in her pocket. Her feet dragged and she trudged along, stopping before a ratty diner. The chipping of the paint and faded designs of women in old pinup outfits seemed lightly dusted over the abrasive surface of the building. As much as she would've liked to never be near this building, she couldn't avoid it as the smell of breakfast wafted into her empty stomach.

There was a loud creak as she opened the door; wary, tired eyes flicked her way before subsiding once more. She chewed on her lip for a second, attempting to discern an empty space in the small locale.

Suzy was scanning seats as well as people--curly hair here, lazy eyes there. No one was remarkably outstanding to her.

She settled in a table a few spaces away from the corner and next to a large, wall-length window. Tucking her bags between herself and the wall, a waitress walked up to her, her lips quirked peculiarly.

“What can I get you, stranger?” She asked, pen swaying rhythmically with her patience. It was a very quick motion.

“Uhh,” Suzy had paused again, her face twisting into thought briefly. “May I have-” She braked, briefly glancing at the deteriorating menu. “The small classic?”

Writing her order down, the waitress left without another word and Suzy was left feeling as if she had done something wrong. Her thumbs pushed against each other awkwardly, fidgeting with ambition as she attempted to ward off the idea that perhaps people were staring at her.

Nervousness began to overtake her the longer she stood without food and she willed herself not to flee desperately from the restaurant. The tapping of her foot had long since increased just as the waitress returned, setting down a plate of food before the teen. Suzy nodded in her direction, silently thanking her for the overall good deed she had just done.

Her blue eyes fell on the plate and she was quietly appalled. She couldn’t tell if it was the anxiety or the food itself that made her insides wretch instinctively but Suzy knew it may have been a long while before she ate a freshly cooked meal again. The food seemed to be overall colorless, lacking in the vibrancy of food she knew she could make for herself and with less cost. Nothing seemed to be real, the eggs were gelatinous and the pancakes were sticking together like gum to a shoe. Everything seemed utterly inedible, hell, even the orange juice that the returning waitress sat down displayed too thickly in the foggy glass.

Suzy swallowed down her standards with the first bite of eggs that resembled rubber. Tasteless, it was but the texture was astounding, albeit, that was not always a positive statement. The sounds it made as it was being crushed between her teeth was also resounding. Suzy shook her head briefly, shaking away the creeping feeling that was crawling past all of her nerve endings.

She looked to the ceiling, trying to find the will to continue on, not only with her abhorrent food but also on this journey itself. She needed to leave for herself - for her wellbeing. She could not let her own selfish desire to rest in the arms of...him, destroy her chances of moving on without him. He could not hinder her anymore, it isn’t what either of them wanted. But alas, it had been how long now? A few months? A couple of years? Suzy really didn’t know anymore because her life wasn’t moving at a pace that could be counted in days or months or years. Her life was trudging so slowly that it seemed at first glance as if nothing was moving; her life was on a loop of living with _him_ , being with _him_ , existing with _him_.

But there was no more _him_. He was just a memory now and if Suzy didn’t move on now...well, who knows how her life would end up.

“Are you finished, lil lady?” The waitress was hovering over Suzy, watching her eyes glaze over with the saltiness of her emotions. The teen had only eaten a little over half of her plate but there was something about her aura that let the waitress know that she wasn’t going to willingly eat anymore than she had to right now.

Suzy nodded, looking at the price on the tab that was set before her: $11.74 + tip. She sighed inwardly, she would have much rathered slip away with her measly $11.74 + tip and continue on her journey but something within her tugged forcefully until she summoned the waitress back to pick up the bill. Morals seemed to be her downfall. 


	2. Adronitis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> adronitis: The frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone.

She returned to the humidity of the Floridian summer and readjusted her grip on the sheathed knife that was in her pocket. Standing opposite the diner, she watched the waves of air and anticipated a car that was never coming. She was beginning to become seriously disillusioned and very dissociated.

“If you’re waiting for a ride, I can tell you, one isn’t coming.” A voice seemed to appear from nowhere and Suzy raised her head slowly towards the sun. She had been sitting alongside the dirt road, her eyes fixated on the quickly heating ground. Curly hair. It was one of the patrons from inside.

“And why’d you say that?”

“I’ve been in your situation before, here too.” The man before her seemed lackadaisical in his movements and actions. He seemed utterly unfettered by the heat washing over him and the beanie that was placed on his head lazily. “No one ever comes.”

“Well...” Suzy’s mouth twisted again, a habit she wasn’t fond of forming. “You came.”

The skepticism was clear as day on the man’s face and Suzy felt a strange discomfort well within herself.

“Oh snap, you have a point,” he said in that smooth voice of his. It was making her uncomfortable. “Where are you headed?”

“Are you offering to give me a ride?” She was being defensive again; she was always answering a question with a question.

“Depends.”

“California,” she responded finally, her knuckles turning white as she clenched her fist anxiously. She didn’t know what she expected from hitchhiking. A friendly road trip with her family? These were strangers and she was a stranger to herself.

The man before her shifted his stance, glancing briefly at his watch before behind him once, as if he were deciding something.

“I can get you there, or at least part way,” he resolved, his gaze focusing on her for the first time since he’d approached her. “I was road-tripping my way across the country but I can detour.”

“Really?” There was a childish amazement in her voice before it resolved back into her own steely attitude. “What’s in it for you?”

“I-I don’t know,” he answered honestly and she could see his expression change even in the shadow that the sun reflected over him. “I guess I just like to help people.”

Suzy seemed to think for a second, as if trying to discern his sincerity before nodding.

He stuck a hand down to her level, helping her up before shaking it. “The name’s Dan.”

“Suzanne,” she replied, forcing a smile onto the discomfort of her lips. She refused to let him call her Suzy. That’s what...he had called her. _She didn’t want to remember that he wasn’t there anymore._

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Dan answered and he flashed her a smile. It was stunning.

The sun, too, was stunning as they raced down a near deserted highway. Sweat accumulated between the leather and Suzy’s palm just as it did between torn leather and Dan’s. Neither of them had let go of what was protecting them and a thickness settled between them.

“So…” Dan’s voice cut through the quiet humidity and jerked Suzy from her daze of watching heat waves dance atop the ground. “Why California?”

“It’s far away from Florida,” Suzy responded quickly. Her speech was blunt and staccatic. It seemed like she wouldn’t give him more than he asked for nor would she give him any reason to continue the conversation.

His Adam’s apple bobbed uncomfortably; the mood was tenser than he’d ever known one could be and he was left feeling as if he should have left her on the side of the road. But no, no, he steeled his anxiety down; he knew someone with bad intentions could have hurt her. The grip she had on her knife seemed to strongly suggest otherwise.

“True, true,” he nodded, a breath welling in his chest. “That is...true.”

Both parties were resolutely uncomfortable in the strange atmosphere of the beat up car that Dan drove and the heat of the summer didn’t add any resolution.

Dan reached forward, his fingers languidly turning the dial to the radio volume until music statically arose from his speakers. He wasn’t going to ask permission to listen to music, although he knew he should have. He craved some sort of mental stimulation, anything was more than the wall Suzy had built around herself.

They drove past everything and nothing simultaneously, Dan's voice ringing through the motion of the car as Suzy’s eyes fixated themselves on her own reflection in the glass window. To the teenager, Dan’s voice was distant and ever present, it was all around her and she wasn’t quite sure if his voice was real or not. This whole situation was unreal.

It took about an hour of quiet driving for Suzy to fall asleep and it seemed as if her awareness was fully present as indicated by the grip on her knife. Had Dan not been anxious about the entire intensity of the situation, he certainly had cause to be anxious by her defensiveness.

Leaning over ever so slowly, Dan pushed the knife out of her hand. Her hand gave way easily, almost as if the toughness was only for display and she was some form of weak. He would never tell her that. She shifted slightly in her seat, her jaw clenching and relaxing rhythmically, and Dan heaved a sigh of relief. He sank down in his seat, his pace slowing hesitantly as he raced in the nighttime.

* * *

 

Suzy’s heart raced as Dan continued to tell the story of why he was on the road. It tugged at something within herself - the desire for change, the need for something new, the restlessness of conformity. She found herself chiming in here and there, a chuckle at a poorly worded sentence there, a solemn hum at a memory here. They were alike and yet so different. Dan had chosen to leave home and find a new one, Suzy felt as if she had no choice.

“I think-” Dan sounded as if he were concluding. “I think that if you know you have somewhere to return to, just leave. If it’s what you really think you need to do right now, take the opportunity. Like, I know I can most definitely return home to Jersey; I have family out there who care about me and want me home…” He sighed through his nose, eyebrows furrowing under his beanie before he continued. “But...but, I know, and _they_ know, that being out there isn’t what’s best for me y’know?”

Suzy was nodding along and the pout on her lips suggested that she didn’t completely agree with his statements. She didn’t believe she had somewhere to return to; her home wasn’t her home anymore. Then again, she was always one to believe that home was wherever she felt comfortable.

“You return to yourself,” she said quietly, not looking at Dan as he frowned at the sputtering of the engine. “It isn’t about the opportunity, it’s about the experience. If you aren’t where you need to be, it’s up to you to change it.”

“Even if it’ll hurt people?”

“It isn’t about them,” she continued, turning to him. They revealed a lot about why exactly she was here, in a car with a stranger in the middle of Florida, and not at home, where she so desperately needed to be. To care for herself. “I know it sounds really selfish, but I think you really have to care about yourself over other people sometimes. You'll only ever have yourself.”

Dan hummed in thought, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he pulled over on the side of the highway. White smoke rose in plumes from the exhaust pipe and he stepped out of the car with a huff of frustration.

Suzy shifted uncomfortably in her seat as Dan seemed to inspect beneath the hood. Negative thoughts swarmed in her mind; worthlessness and desperation settled over her. ‘ _Proactivity_ , _Suzy_ ’ she relayed to herself, stepping out of the car.

Dan looked over at her inquisitively, his bushy hair pulled up behind his head. “You know something about cars?”

She shrugged, stepping beside him cautiously. “White smoke means the engine is overheating.” Her voice seemed much more meek in the emptiness of the darkening air.

“Huh.” Dan placed his hands on his hips. “I don't really know what to do about that.”

She shook her head, motioning for him to get back in the car. “We’ve gotta go to a gas station.”

* * *

 

The stationary television fixed in the corner of the car parts store had images dancing across the screen and Suzy was vaguely interested as Dan spoke with the clerk. He was arguing, not paying attention to the image of Suzy that played on the screen before her widening eyes.

A drum echoed in her chest and she felt sick; she was a missing person. She prayed that they would stop talking about her before Dan noticed but they seemed to drag on, intentionally tormenting her.

She needed air. She was rushing toward the exit, her feet stumbling barely as Dan looked towards the screen. He noticed not her quick departure but noticed her distinct features being shown and described lamely.

He was rapidly understanding why she was so hesitant to speak about herself, why she needed to leave.


	3. Exulansis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> exulansis: the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it

Suzy had avoided Dan's questions the whole ride; she had ignored him, feigned being asleep, and outright told him that it was not his business, please leave her alone, she could find another ride, she did not want to talk about it!

He had learned that perhaps he was overstepping his boundaries. He was no more than a glorified uber driver and although he had spent over a day with her, they were not friends, not family, hell they were barely even acquainted. He still called her by that dead name that made her feel like crying every time because she was no longer Suzy to anyone. It made her feel more alone but she couldn't allow herself to get close to anyone again; she couldn't allow herself to get hurt again.

There seemed to be a patrol on the border for Florida and Alabama, the highway suddenly seemed sober and slower than ever before. Suzy leaned her head out of the window briefly, the humid air causing her hair to stick to her skin uncomfortably. She surveyed the line of cars and the sheriffs lined carefully upon the side of the road.

“Checkpoint,” Dan said briskly, his tone rough. “Y’know for drug smugglers, kidnapped people. The likes. Florida isn’t the greatest place.”

Suzy raised an eyebrow at him. Did he think she didn’t know? She was born and raised there; the patronizing tone of his voice seemed to grate on her nerves. She was irritated and settling into the fact that she’d be there, with him, for awhile was no comfort.

* * *

 

The sheriff approached the driver’s side window with a dog sitting patiently at his side, tongue pushed out of the tight flaps of his lips. It sniffed the perimeter of the car, stopping abruptly near the back of the trunk; Dan’s breath hitched in his throat and he could feel his body stiffen up in anxiety. The police had never truly been his friend.

“All clear,” the officer said, his steely look drawing past Dan rapidly to Suzy. “Actually, sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to pull over.”

Suzy’s eyes flitted to Dan’s face and he could recognize the fear as they sat on the side of the road. She swallowed the worries that were swelling in her throat, ready to choke her out and return her to the beginning of this journey. Her closed throat was all too similar to the dustiness of the nighttime ground where she believed that she could not continue.

“What do you think he wants?” Suzy asked, her voice wavering back into the lightness that it hadn’t had in weeks. “Do you have drugs on you or anything? Are you a fugitive?” Words spilled from the thinness of her lips like honey, slowly yet unstoppable.

“Suzanne, relax,” Dan said, placing a hand over hers and for once she didn’t pull away melodramatically. “Probably just a mistake. Don’t get worked up.”

The officer returned and the darkness of his glasses reflected the couple's worried looks as he spoke. “Ma’am, may I see your ID?”

She choked. Images of the television in the car parts store poured back to her and she seized up in her seat. She was a missing person.

“What for?” she nearly barked out, the anxiety pushing out of her voice in aggression. The broad figure of the man looming outside of Dan’s window tensed and shifted from one foot to the other.

“Ma’am, show me your ID.” There was no hesitation in his tone, nor his words. He was intent on it.

“Dude,” Dan whispered, looking at Suzy with eyes panicking secretly. “The hell are you doing? Just give it to him!”

Suzy’s eyes, while doey and large as ever, pleaded with him in a way that her words never could. _Please don’t make me do this Dan, I’m scared_.

She rifled through her bag and, pushing the thin plastic past Dan and to the officer, Suzy let a huff of air pass her nose. It was as if she were crying.

“Okay, yeah, sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to step out of the vehicle and put your hands behind your back.”

Time slowed the situation and Dan found himself exiting the car, eyes looking at Suzy desperately for an answer. She instinctively reached out to grab his wrist and keep him fixed there with her; he was all she had now.

“What am I getting arrested for?” Dan asked quickly, looking for an answer in anything, anyone, anywhere. His pleas were drowned out by his Miranda rights and suddenly he wanted to shove his right to remain silent down the officer’s throat because goddammit he was not going to go quietly. “What the fuck?”

The word kidnapping rang like church bells against the hollowness of his skull and, without thought, Dan attempted to pull away, attempted to look at the officer and ask him if reasonably he thought that Suzy hadn’t left of her own volition. His arms were jerked back and a pained groan escaped from his lips before any protests could. The coldness of the cuff stung sharply against the skin of his wrist and the bite of the the cuff on his other seemed to never come.


	4. Nodus Tollens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nodus tollens: the realization that the plot of your life doesn't make sense to you anymore

He looked behind him to see the officer bolting in another direction, attempting to apprehend someone else.

“Let’s go!” Suzy’s voice reverberated in the quiet muffle of the hot dawn and Danny instinctively sat in his car once more, slamming the door and pressing the pedal of the gas aggressively. Dust plumed where the tires once were and no longer did the situation seem to encompass only short periods of time drawn out over the matter of years.

He drove frantically, the jingle of the single locked handcuff fading into the background of the heated race against time itself. They had to leave before they were noticed. Dan couldn’t even hear the sound of his own voice as it yelled at Suzy to explain just what the fuck her situation was.

“I’m sorry, okay!” Suzy pleaded, her eyes falling heavy with the dark bags of her past.

“Sorry isn’t gonna make what I’m doing any less illegal, Suzy!” Dan replied and Suzy stopped, closing her gaping mouth for a moment. He had called her Suzy as if it were the most natural thing to fall from his lips.

“I-I’m sorry!” It seemed to be the only words she was capable of forming as they weaved through the cars of the highway, now in a state that belonged to neither of them. “I dunno what you want me to tell you!”

“Let’s start with the fucking truth.” It was the first time Dan had actually looked at her. It was the first time he saw the childish innocence in her eyes, the first time he saw that she knew not what the hell she was doing, the first time that Dan saw the hurt and the pain and the longing and the searching in Suzy’s face.

“I’m a runaway, Dan!” she bursted and the weight that she had been carrying throughout their entire journey surged out in the form of tears staining the now redness of her pale cheeks. “I’m running from myself and I don’t know where I’m fucking going! I didn’t want them to follow me like this and I didn’t think...I didn’t think that they would but I am so sorry that I’ve dragged you into this! I’m sorry that I’m fucking up your road trip, I’m sorry for existing, but I can’t help it!”

The sadness in her voice was nearly palpable and Dan fought off the ever present urge to put her emotions before his own. Always the gentleman, chivalrous and never self serving; perhaps that was a great flaw of his that lead him to being cuffed to the idea of self serving freedom.

“That isn’t what this is about.” Dan had to refrain from shouting over her. “If you would have told me the truth from the fucking start we wouldn’t be in this position.”

“What was I supposed to tell you?” she asked, her lips pursed in frustration. “That I’m a runaway even though I’m barely an adult? That I’m running away to be homeless because I have no direction, no clue where I’m going? Dan, I can’t tell the truth if I wanted to because it’s too scary for me to face.”

“Suzanne-”

“Suzy,” she interrupted him and the adrenaline of hearing her name in open space once more increased. “You called me Suzy once already. No need to change now.”

He paused. “Was that, like, a special name for you?” It was as if Dan knew her inside and out. It made her stomach churn roughly, a bittersweet emotion rising swiftly from her. She nearly didn’t answer.

“Uh, ye-yeah it was,” she murmured amongst the quiet loudness of the gossip. “I'd rather not talk about him.” She hadn't noticed that she had specified _him_ , she didn't know that her name seemed to still only belong to him.

“Makes enough sense,” Dan nodded, periodically checking the rearview mirrors for any trace of officers following them. “Listen, I’m sorry that you’re running away, I’m sorry for being a jerk but hell - I don’t know you that well and I’m wiggin’ out.”

Suzy shifted again; she was uncomfortable and afraid and slowly beginning to regret leaving the only place she considered home. “What can I do to help? I can, uh, tell you a little about myself? If you’d like.”

Dan hummed in consideration, his fingers flexing and unflexing over the wheel. He seemed to be turned against himself, his mind convincing him of one thing then the other. “Well if you want to, I can’t force you to.” He had already tried.

“Hey, maybe we should stop somewhere for the night, or, er... morning.” It was still early morning and she was certain that no officers would continue to follow them. Suzy didn’t value herself enough.

Dan glanced over at her, his eyes half lidded and heavy. Stopping did seem like such a good idea to him, he was exhausted and the burst of adrenaline that had kept him alert and driving was beginning to sputter out like a faulty engine.

“Y-yeah, that’s a good idea,” he said in a quiet tone, a yawn beginning to stretch out the sharpness of his angular face. Suzy was staring and she didn’t even know why. Perhaps trying to discern why Dan was so willing to put himself in danger for her?

“What are you gaining from me?” Suzy asked, still staring at the fine lines running through his face like invisible memories of years long forgotten. “Like, from helping me? You must be gaining something from it. Is it a religious reason? Money?”

Dan laughed for what seemed like the first time since they’d been together. “We’ve been over this, Suzy.” He was right. She’d asked him before already but she still couldn’t fathom the idea could so selflessly risk themselves just to help her escape across the country. “I was heading to California anyway, I don’t like risking people’s lives if I can help it.”

She shook her head, returning to staring out of the window on her right hand side. “That’s dumb,” was the only thing to think to say back. The more she learned about him, the less her thoughts of him could formulate.

* * *

 

Formulating a sleeping arrangement in a hotel with one twin sized bed wasn’t as easy as they had thought. They had been trying for a while now to get a spare blanket so one of them could sleep on the bed while the other slept on the floor, but the clerk that they had called insisted with an aggressive vehemency that a room could not request more blankets than were stocked. It seemed as if by some force unknown to them, they were forced against each other, the hotness from their breath tightening the space between them.

If Suzy had to admit it, she would have suspected that Dan had not been entirely in the right state of mind since she had suggested that they stop for rest. He seemed lackadaisical, even more so than normal and the way he dived onto the loud, springy mattress displayed that the two or so days on the road did something, not only to his mind, but to his body as well. Dan had to, reluctantly, ask Suzy for help removing his shirt as if he were an infant or an alcoholic - both in which he prided himself on not being.

Suzy sat on the edge of the bed for quite sometime, quiet tears formulating in the corners of her eyes like crystals threatening to spill over her beauty. She was afraid and it didn’t quite settle in that she was no longer home until she had to lay in the bed with a stranger next to her. She felt dirty and wrong, she hadn’t changed since Dan had picked her up and she longed for something different and not quite as short as the crop top she was adorning. Grasping the loose fabric of Dan’s shirt, Suzy cast a glance back at his sleeping form, noting the fetal position and soft snoring of someone who had never quite shared a bed with others.

She reveled in the quiet loneliness of the shower and the mess that the quickly cooling water had done to the red tint in her hair. It frizzed in a pseudo-bob past her shoulders and as she looked in the mirror, she had to admit that the look wasn’t completely terrible. Albeit, she had no choice despite what it looked like. She dried and put on Dan’s shirt over her undergarments unintentionally basking in the scent of the road that stained the collar.

She crawled into bed next to him, instinctively turning her back on him to attempt to detach herself from the situation as much as possible. She did not want to deal with the loneliness that ached in the pit of her stomach, swelling like a malignant tumor as it mixed with the anxiety of forming close relationships, even if temporary. She, too, wrapped herself in the fetal position and she felt closer to Dan than ever. She understood him in a way that she could never have believed and she turned to face him, there was innocence behind his know-all mask too and knowing him better massaged the pain, leading it to subside briefly.


	5. Opia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Opia: the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable

If Dan's own persistence was even slightly comparable to that of the sun shining through the thinness of the curtains, he would still be driving towards freedom and he wouldn't pause for he surely was running on sheer determination and spite. His eyes opened up to the round curvature of Suzy’s young face and something within his chest rattled violently, awaking him with a start. She made a small noise and shifted minutely closer, still asleep and unaware of the heat rising to Dan's cheeks.

The situation felt rather unsettling yet uncannily natural as well. The glow of her skin radiated in the shimmering sunlight and Dan was breathless for a moment as he watched her. Waves of last night, or rather the lack of last night, resonated in his still sleepy mind and he realized that he couldn’t remember what had happened once they’d reached the hotel room. Although now well rested, his body was grounded because of the anxiety coursing thickly through his veins. Only one thing resounded in his mind, echoing itself loudly.

Had he slept with her?

While certainly thinking she was intriguing and beautiful, he couldn’t find it within himself to take advantage of her in such a way! Suzy was a special case to Dan; she was no charity and she was mystery. He wouldn’t sleep with her without knowing if it was what they both wanted. To say the least, he cared about her in a way he hadn’t cared about anyone since his late wife.

His late wife. It had been, what now? Seven years? That seemed like far too long but counting back, it had really been seven years since she had died. Dan didn't like that word - _died_. Nothing about her seemed dead - the way she made him feel, the smell of her sweet hair, her laugh that was as deep as toll bells - _every part of her_ lingered like a grain of sand in his sheets; she rubbed him rough and hard.

Dan could still remember the stupid name of her shampoo - _Passion Bliss_. It was really pretentious, huh? He always wondered what it was supposed to smell like; the seven years following the storm that took her away - he wanted to believe it was the storm that took her, he wanted to blame everything but, well, her - finally taught him. _Passion Bliss_ smelled like the sunshine and saltwater of the beach they met on, it smelled like the steamy metal band rubbing against his palm as he waited for her to come to ‘their’ cafe for their umpteenth date, like the thickness of the air in their apartment nearing that night, it smelled like guilt, it smelled like his fault; it smelled like her, it smelled like her, it smelled like **_her_**.

There was a cesspool of depression that Dan had fallen down, not after her tumble down the side of a highway, but _before_. He was so consumed with his own sadness that he hadn't noticed hers. He held himself on being remarkably unaware of others’ sadness.

He spent 11 years with only her in mind; some would say he was making up for the time when he should have been there for her but wasn't, he would say her ghost trapped him until the thirteenth anniversary of their meeting. He ran that day, not looking back to make sure that he wasn't missing anything. He first ran south and now he was running west, reinvigorated with new purpose.

Suzy’s legs swung off the side of the bed and Dan was shaken from the tears in his eyes; the memories were hot enough to burn them. How long had he been lying here, motionless with eyes fixated loosely on the idea of Suzy’s face next to his?

“G’mornin’.” Her voice sounded astoundingly different. A low rasp, a quick nonexistent southern drawl, a natural purr all concocted into her voice and Dan was nearly taken aback by the change. His blood pulsated past his ears and he could hear definitely the skips in between. Each beat erased the memory of his wife from his current mind and filled him with her.

He could only grunt in response as she past by him towards the bathroom. He watched her shirt hang loosely around her arms but fit tightly to the distinct curves of her teen body. It was then that he looked down to see himself shirtless despite maintaining the Giants beanie on his head. She was wearing his shirt and although he should have been unbothered by it, something was overwhelmingly wrong.

She was in the bathroom brushing her teeth and Dan's voice cut through the silent buzz of water drilling the sink.

“I think we should go our separate ways.”

The toothbrush slammed into the back of her throat and she choked loudly before spitting and leaving to stare at him from the doorway.

“What did you say?” Suzy was in disbelief.

“I think we should-”

“I heard what you said Dan but, fuck, um,” she shifted to another leg while stammering. “Why?” He noticed her crossing her arms over her chest and something tore within himself. He was locked out of her once again.

“I just don't wanna use you Suzy,” he didn't feel right using that name anymore. “You're young and I know you can make your way there some kinda way and-”

She interrupted him again and stepped forward to meet him where he paced near the bed. “As if! You're acting like we slept together!” She was hysterical. “D-Dan you can't just leave me in a motel in the middle of nowhere and say I can figure it out myself! You're a part of this now, you can't leave me please!”

He hadn't noticed that she'd said they hadn't slept together. Forever the observant one, he was. He placed his hands on her shoulders and tried to calm the panicky waving of her arms. “Please I don't want to hurt you! You can get there without me.”

They were yelling over each other; in the glow of the early morning light that filtered through the opaqueness of dust covered curtains, Dan paused long enough to hear her broken whisper of “You're the only one that I can trust anymore…”

He was still holding her shoulders and suddenly the blues of her eyes were sad oceans and he was neck deep. “What?”

“Dan, please don't leave me.” Her cheeks raised to cushion the drop of tears down her face and to Dan, she seemed to glow in the faded browns around her. Whatever he was thinking previous to this escaped him and he just nodded, inaudibly promising that he wouldn't.


	6. Vellichor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vellichor: the strange wistfulness of used bookstores

Her hips swayed as she made her way around the small thrift store, her small fingers gracing objects with mild interest. Dan had suggested that they buy something at the book shop ‘for the hell of it’.

“There's nothing wrong with creating memories,” he had said, his sweet side smile charming her into cooperating. Now that she was in the shop however, she was beginning to realize two things. One, all shops in the south contained a level of patriotism that was unmeasured anywhere else. And two, she had developed an anxiety towards owning things or considering anything permanent. Permanence was a quality that lacked throughout her life.

“I don’t know what to get,” she murmured, the pages of the books seemingly absorbing her words to quiet the small space she inhabited.

“Not much of a reader?” Dan replied and suddenly Suzy felt so much smaller in the store. She felt like his voice enveloped her as she looked at him and shook her head.

“How about a journal then?” His eyes scanned the surrounding area and, spotting a small black notebook a few feet away, Dan rushed to grab it for her. The gesture, while small, meant so much to the both of them.

As he pushed the notebook to her, Dan watched her expression shift into something unfathomably _adorable_ ; a blush tinted her pale cheeks and the blue hues of her eyes seemed to brighten as they widened and Dan seemed so fixated on the way that her lips ever so slightly parted in surprise before cracking into a warm smile.

“Well aren't you a smart ass?” She said as she scanned the cover of the book.

His eyebrows pulled down over his eyebrows and his head cocked to the side like a puppy. “What do you mean?”

She turned the book towards him and he read the carefully stenciled words that were on the smooth black expanse of the notebook. _Death log_. His eyebrows lifted again and he held off the urge to laugh, instead opting out to stumble over his words to apologize.

“It’s all good.” Suzy’s voice was light and airy with laughter. “It’s pretty dope, I dig it.” Dan’s heart swelled with some indescribable emotion - she loved something he had chosen for her.

“Let’s get it then!” he said, beaming with metaphorical light. The creases around his tired eyes seemed to smooth out a bit looking at her. Dan really did look tired; he had rested very little in the days they had spent at various motels and the stress was beginning to take a toll on him. He was afraid they wouldn’t be able to afford an apartment once they got to California; he was also beginning to be afraid in general. No, afraid wasn’t the right word. Dan was anxious. He had no plan and while that wasn’t a problem in the beginning, the reality of his situation was beginning to dawn on him. No money, no prospect for housing or work with a girl he barely knew; Dan was going to be homeless when he finally reached his destination.

Looking at Suzy made something within him feel a bit better. Although riddled with anxieties, Suzy’s can-do attitude was beginning to rub off on him and he realized, albeit slowly, that this would not be the end of the world.

Something great had pulled them together, Suzy had whispered to him one night as he sat against the side of the bed she was lying in. Her fingers were in his hair then, he distinctly remembered that in his daze of half sleep. She was murmuring herself into sleep and she had said that something great had pulled them together, she was sure of it, and she was no longer worried. She had told Dan, although she had not _told_ Dan, that when she was with him, everything seemed like it would be okay. He believed her.

Both of their thoughts were centered while exiting the small bookshop. What to write in that damned journal and the new future of what was no longer just a singular life. They thought in silence and made their way back into the car. It seemed as if the car was a begrudging host and the two travellers were houseguests who seemed to never want to leave. The car no longer seemed welcome to them but perhaps it was only with age that it became less enthusiastic. Dan felt bad for her, the car that is. He had put her through so much on this journey and he was sure that, if money and opportunity permitted, he would retire her and let her live the rest of her days resting.

Although a charming gift, Suzy began to regret buying the journal approximately fifteen words into the first page. Not only was a car not the easiest place to write, but the texture of the paper was similar to that of plastic. It had an uncomfortable lack of give beneath the pen that she had quietly slipped into her sleeve and happened to smudge quite easily. It required a tireless technique, she discovered once she had given up on ridding the paper, and her hands, of the dark ink that stained both surfaces. Hand lifted, steady and poised, the pen wrote best with little pressure and Suzy’s handwriting shifted from a childish scrawl to something beautiful.

 _Getting attacked is easier than affording a hotel room_ , was the first thing she wrote and Suzy was taken aback by the lack of tears clouding her vision. Was she becoming numb to the tribulations of cross country travelling? Had she settled into acceptance that these things happen? She mused that it was a disturbing mix of both. These things happen on the open road under streetlights that have long been dimmed with the cloudy wings of moths long gone. She was only one of countless travellers to have this experience. Reluctantly, she accepted that she was one of the luck ones.

* * *

 

“You wanna get breakfast?” Suzy asked in the dustiness of their room. It was blanketed warmly in a fine layer of dust and shared nights but it still felt cold to her as she dropped her bags in the closet. “We passed by a diner on the way here.”

“A diner, huh?” Dan was sprawled out on the bed that was too short for his expansiveness. His feet dangled in the air like a symbol of the fragility of the human life. “Trying to relive our lovely meeting?”

She hadn’t even remembered that they had met only a few weeks previous at a diner. She should really thank herself for getting hungry enough to stick around and eat what she considered highly mediocre.

“I try not to, like, live in the past,” she said, her tone was serious, or as serious as it could get when she had a smile plastered on her face. Her face, to mention, was very flushed but she would insist it was only that glowing red color because of the sweltering Louisiana heat and not because of the wink that Dan had shot her way.

“Well baby, let’s roll out and make our futures. Can’t do much on an empty stomach,” he replied, popping up from his star position. Popping up wasn’t the right term for the action that he did; in reality, the bed did not hold enough bounce to actually allow him to pop up. Instead, he sat up quickly and the only thing that popped was a vertebrae in his spine because of the aggressiveness of the action.

The diner that Suzy had spotted seemed to be less of an actual diner and more of a coffee shop.Surprisingly, it was bustling with activity and the duo was forced to sit outside of the restaurant to enjoy their ‘breakfast’.

Dan sat to the right of Suzy and rested his chin on the palm of his hand, staring at her in what could only be described as an adoring and intrigued manner. She was uncomfortable to say the least; she had attempted to pull her hair up to allow her skin to breath, however it only served in allowing stray strands to blow in the breeze and fix to the stickiness at the nape of her neck.

He was asking her questions about herself; family, why she was here with him, what did she like to do. She was answering them to the best of her ability; not close knit, she needed to get away; she loved to read and study animals.

“Get away from what?”

Suzy wasn’t taken aback. She knew the question was bound to come and she had already been struggling to identify an answer that when he actually asked, all that came out was a short lived, “Myself.”

“No, that’s not right,” she continued as his eyes softened on her. “Not myself, my memories. Um, living in Orlando - that’s where I’m from - living in Orlando wasn’t the same anymore. Not without...him.”

Dan only had to raise his eyebrow to signal another question. He had been sipping his tea infrequently before she had took on a serious tone, now he was consistently sitting with the cup to his lip.

“He was my boyfriend,” she said, and her voice leapt from her throat in a fit. “Not was, is, I guess? I haven’t seen him in a year.” Saying this aloud seemed almost therapeutic for her; she had been shut down so many times before this. “He, like, he disappeared. I don’t know what happened to him but I couldn’t stay there just…”

“Just trying to see if it was your fault?” Dan pitched in subconsciously. Her head snapped up and the reddish tint in her hair seemed to dull a bit when she realized she had been staring into the swirling brown of her coffee.

“Just trying to see if it was my fault,” she agreed, nodding slowly.

“We have a lot in common then,” Dan said and he put his tea down just for her to lift her coffee. “I’m running from memories too.”

“Ex-girlfriend?”

“Wife. Not an ex but not current either.” Something within Dan had visibly shifted and he pushed his hair back from his face. He seemed a little older, the colors of his unkempt facial hair seemed to gray out and Suzy felt something tug within herself as she grabbed his hand. She soothed the tears that were bubbling in his eyes with her thumb and he continued. “I felt guilty too, y’know? Like I could have stopped it.”

A feeling welled in Suzy and she felt that it was her job to help him as much as he had helped her. “Something I’ve learned,” she began and her voice shook just a bit, not enough for anyone to notice but enough to signal that she was unsure of her words. “I’ve learned that if you didn’t, like, directly cause it with your own two hands, it usually isn’t your fault. People are individuals, Dan. We can’t save them all, sometimes they have to save themselves.”

He looked at their hands, the striking brown of his contrasting with the soft paleness of hers. They fit perfectly together, so natural, so _perfect_. The same could be said for their lips yet Dan’s mind was too much like a burnt match to think of anything as they kissed.

Suzy was the first to pull away and she looked at the brown expanse of Dan’s eyes before her. They betrayed him and she could see him vulnerable for the first time this trip.

“Should we head back to the room?” Dan whispered, visibly noticing the lack of distance between their faces. He could have kissed her again had he really thought it was necessary or appropriate.

“M’kay,” Suzy answered, her voice just as quiet. The noise from the bustling cafe was drowned out by each others’ presence and the thumping of their hearts.

They walked side by side down the road, and Dan felt like a teenager again whenever his hand brushed against the back of Suzy’s. Why was he afraid to hold it? It was such an innocent display of affection and he was afraid that he may not be able to show how much he really cared about her. He wanted to hold her hand and feel if it was as small as it looked, wanted to know intimately the curvatures of these parts of her that had been in every part of her life.

She grabbed it as they rounded the corner and she helt it firmly as if she was scared that he’d float away and she’d be stuck, grounded in a harsh reality. Dan nearly stopped breathing but instead he gave her hand a quick squeeze.

Her eyes spotted something odd, their car window, open and rolled down significantly. “Did you leave the windows down?” she asked, her hand slackening ever so slightly in his.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he assured her, with a level of embarrassment to his face. “My car overheats sometimes, I had to let it air out. Why?”

“I...left a bag in the back,” it sounded like more of a question than a statement as she reached in the window to grab it. It was foreign to her but it only made sense that she had one left in. Who else’s bag could it have been?

Had she known that the bank across from their car had been robbed and the evidence discarded, perhaps she would have been able to piece together that they indeed held evidence to a federal crime in their possession. But she didn’t and neither did Dan as they took hold of the bag and carried it up to the their motel room, effectively putting a dent in the plans of those people who were planning to return for their money.


	7. Jouska

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jouska: a hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head

Suzy’s eyes were glued to the popcorn ceiling above her as she listened to the quiet rambling of Dan’s voice as he struggled to set up the cassette tapes. He was saying something about the lack of music in this city before she interrupted him.

“Oh lay off it, old man,” she jeered, rolling over barely concealed springs. She poked at his back that was turned to her and he let out a forceful, resigned sigh. “Pass it over, I’ll hook it up for you.”

Dan playfully sneered at her as she hung of the bed naturally near him. He watched her fingers work with deftness and chuckled at her.

“What are you laughing at?” she asked, pressing play on the recorder, ”You blazed or something?”

“What even…” Dan laughed at the thought, he’d left that behind him when his wife died. “No, no, you’re just making me feel really old. I grew up with these things y’know?”

“Your poor old mind is just going out, Danny boy,” she teased and he nudged her slightly with the sharpness of his shoulder. He knew she was joking but it didn’t put him to ease anymore. He was conflicted between not caring about others’ thoughts and caring too much. He smiled uneasily as anxiety began washing over him.

Suzy pushed back onto the bed and patted the spot next to her. Climbing on with gangly limbs, Suzy pulled Dan’s head into her lap. He let her tug off the old Giants beanie that he insisted on wearing in the summer heat of the hotel and he closed his eyes.

“I like that you’re a bit older than me,” she admitted to no one in particular. She ran her fingers through the mess of his curls, or at least she attempted to; the curls were more along the lines of knots at this point. “It makes me feel like you have a sense of commitment.”

What was she talking about? Dan had only kissed her, he hadn’t promised her anything. Was it so obvious that he would be content with that? Perhaps he shouldn’t have persisted on mentioning the two of them as we, and as a couplet. That usually implies an air of romance to their situation.Did he want a commitment to such a young girl? Was she even ready?

“Do you want to…” Dan had begun asking the question before his mind could fully process what he was saying. Their eyes were locked and he shook his head as it still remained in her lap. “Never mind, I spazzed and forgot what I was sayin’.” His statement held a small air of truth but Suzy seemed to translate his silence into perfect English.

“If you’re going somewhere, I wouldn't mind coming with,” she admitted, still playing gently with strands of his hair. It was very soft, she noted mentally, surprisingly so. She expected it to be somewhere between coarse and dry but in fact it felt like it was professionally stylized. She was impressed.

“Dude!” He was red now and positively glowing. “You’re turning me into a freakin’ sap.”

“You are very tree like,” she chided and he drew his eyebrows down. She leaned back slightly. Had he really not got her joke? “Very tall and sturdy. Hair big enough to touch the sky. Probably super strong too…” She was going overboard.

“You’re making me sound like all that and a bag of chips!”

“I-I’m sorry!” she sputtered out, her shoulders sinking. “I just...think you are…”

Dan was smiling up at her; his smile was wry and his eyes creased at the sides beautifully and he just radiated so much sunshine that Suzy couldn’t help but giggle in response. He raised a hand to cup her cheek, an action that was difficult when laying across her sideways, and she leaned down, kissing him slowly and methodically.

“It’s hard to do sideways,” she said, breathing out a laugh with the sentence.

She didn’t have to say any more before Dan was sitting up on his knees, his large hands forming to the curves of her face and neck as he kissed her again. Every part of her that he touched felt electric as his hesitation diminished completely. They were both laying soon and every time either separated, the other returned to kiss them once more. It felt like an eternity before they parted.

Suzy’s eyes were closed as Dan held her close, not minding the heat radiating not only from her face, but her body as well. She was far from asleep however, no, her mind was screaming and her heart loudly followed suit.

“Thank you for staying with me.” Dan had broken the silence and the girl in his arms pulled back to look at him inquisitively. “I...I didn’t know how much you meant to me, girl.”

“Are you scared to love me?” she asked, her hooded eyes locked with his. She had said the word that she hadn’t even said to _him_ , he hadn’t recoiled at the thought. Everything seemed to be going right yet something within her broke. Perhaps it was the hold that her memories had fastened onto her. Perhaps something that was broken became fixed.

“I’m scared to let you go,” was the answer she got in return. She knew he would not quickly jump to telling her that he loved her, no she would had much rather that never happen realistically. She was satisfied with his answer and with his arm fastening its grip around the small of her waist.

“You’re like a gem,” he continued and she recognized this as one of the countless mind dumps that he had spent his time babbling about before. “I can’t find someone else as rare and as valuable as you. You’re kinda stuck in this museum in my mind and you’re my favorite exhibit.”

No one had told her something of this effect before. No one had laid themselves out so vulnerably before her and allowed her to see their truth. Tears welled in her eyes but dared not to fall from their steadfast grip on her eyelashes and she buried her face in his shirt. “You sound so wack,” she told him endearingly, her words lost to the choking of her throat. “It means a lot to me.”

With every kind word that Dan spewed at her like an acid to heal, the memory of him became a less present part of her reality and Suzy could feel her spirits lifting. She didn’t know what to say.

“So um,” she was racking her brain for a topic to fill in the silence. “This is your music?”

“Oh, yeah,” he nodded, returning his attention to the silver container playing poorly recorded audio from it. “It’s-it’s not the best but I’m proud of it.”

“You have a nice voice,” Suzy complimented. Something about it was breathtaking. She couldn’t tell if she believed that because it was him or because he truly had a magical talent. She didn’t much care because the way he beamed with pride was enough for her to believe herself fully.


	8. Énouement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Énouement: the bittersweetness of having arrived here in the future

It was as if nothing felt right anymore. She was alone in a room across the distant US and although Dan was only a few minutes away from her, she felt more alone than ever. A tartness was filling her mind and the bittersweetness of arriving in a future that she could not have expected was driving her off a mental cliff.

Suzy struggled to determine if where she was at this moment, not only physically, but in her life itself, was where she wanted to be. Her mind flashed back to the beginning of this journey - to a moment long before she had met Dan - and the feelings of steely courage welled inside her once more. When had she become so vulnerable? She wanted to blame the night times of towns flashing past her for her weakness but she knew deep down that she had always been vulnerable. The young girl inside of herself was always present albeit she cowered away from the realities of the world she was trapped in and Suzy felt a wetness slide into her hair from the closed eyes of her mind.

She would have to tell Dan that she couldn’t move forward with this relationship. Was this a relationship? No, it couldn’t have been - it had moved too fast. This was a symbiotic partnership, they got what they needed from each other, no more and no less.

She heard the door open and she inhaled deeply, attempting to gather the courage to break his heart all over again. Her alertness clicked with the click of a noise near her and her eyes landed on the darkness of danger, looming above her.

“Where’s the fucking bag?” The words were muffled behind the gun, no, they were muffled behind the ski mask of the person that held the gun. Her eyes were not focused on the barrel directly near her as she sat up, they were instead focusing on the intense glare that was focused back on her. “I’m not fuckin’ around kid, where’s the bag?”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!” And it was true, Suzy really couldn’t remember picking up the bag from the backseat of Dan’s car.

The man grabbed her arm, forcing her to stand. She quivered in his presence, the young girl within herself screaming yet silence was the only thing passing her lips. This man seemed to sneer at her with a viscous frustration; the snarl like groan running from his lips did little to sate Suzy’s racing heart.

A rush of adrenaline flooded Suzy’s veins and coursed through her with the ferocity of a roaring rapid and she twisted around, pulling her arm free to throw her body weight against him clumsily. She may not have been a fighter but passiveness was something that she didn’t hold in this moment. There was no place for a little girl when she was in the grasps of a man who demanded something of her that she had no awareness of.

He let out a yelp and alongside that, he let go of the gun. The adrenaline that had so bravely forced her escape, suddenly dissipated and she froze, only moving once more when she noticed the slow crawl of the man returning to his feet.

Panicking, her muscles shook and she grabbed the lamp that was closest to her. Her movements, however quick, weren’t quick enough to completely block the fierce tackle of her attacker. Her head hit the hard carpet of the motel room and her vision swirled to blackness briefly. All Suzy could hear was the quickening of her pulse muffling the shouts of the man who was straddling her hips, threatening her.

Suzy’s hand was searching near her before she could even realize; her fingers were grasping at the coarse nothing near her until they fell upon something solid and dense. She lifted it above her head with little hesitation and blood was on her hands and the...what was she holding? The CD player that had held Dan’s music. It broke. She would have to apologize for that later on. But for now, the man seemed to be screaming in front of her and her chest was heaving with the effort it took to bash him over the head.

Her mind was a whirlwind of thoughts but the fight-or-flight instinct that had kept her surviving all this time was close to fizzling out. He reached for the gun with a shaking, blood-stained hand and Suzy sniffled, her eyes close to being considered teary. She steeled her nerves and with a deafening scream, she lunged on him.

HIs head, still battered and bloody, hit the ground once more and he wailed out in the pain. “Just give me the fucking bag!”

“I don’t know,” she paused. “What you’re talking about dude!”

He pulled the gun on her and even though she was in a position of power over him, she felt herself regressing into a helpless child. There was a battle raging within her that she struggled to identify - the child arguing with the strong headed adult she needed to be. The adult seemed to win over and Suzy grabbed the man’s wrist, attempting to pry the weapon away from him.

Her ears rang as she fell back with closed eyes. The noise was deafening and dizzying and Suzy’s whole body was tense at the boom that had pushed her back. Her hands had clenched as far as they could and her breath choked in her throat. She had no time to stalemate though, and, regaining her wit, she searched frantically for her way to escape.

The gun. They both reached and with a fraction of a second to spare, Suzy drew it on the man before her. His mask, ripped and exposing most of his face, was sliding off and he looked at her with a steely gaze. The clocked ticked rhythmically and anxiety accumulated in Suzy’s chest making her feel the intensity of her heartbeat.

“I told you,” her voice was shaky alongside the rest of her body. “I told you I don’t know what _bag_ -” she spat the word out, “-you're talking about.”

“Put the gun down chickie, you don't know what you're holding.” His tone was mocking and he could clearly see the hesitance in her stance. No matter though for she did hold his life in her hands.

Where the fuck was Dan at? She didn't want to be alone right now. “Maybe but maybe not,” she said, instantly regretting her choice of words. “But you came into my room threatening _me_. I need you to leave.”

“Not without my bag-” She figured out how to release the safety of the gun with a click as she relearned how to breathe. “Okay, okay! Fuck.”

The quiver in his voice was all the confidence she needed in this small burst of time. “Get out.” Her voice held a semblance of authority and when he hesitated, she repeated herself, harsher the second time. “I said get out!”

The man got to his feet and with a grimace, made his way to the door, keeping his hands in the air and his eyes on her. She didn’t lower the gun, not even once he left the room.

Suzy sat on the edge of the bed with her newfound gun trained on the single entrance to the room. She patted the ground near the bed, before sighing and remembering that Dan had put the bags in the closet. “You can’t trust people,” was his reasoning.

She slowly crept to the closet, arm straining to stay raised and mind focused on protecting herself and trying to find the bag that the man was so adamant about finding. She pushed her own bags out the way with a few short sweeps of her arm and her gaze flitted back to the door before she pulled out the bag. She couldn’t keep her eyes from fluttering around her surroundings as she yanked at the rusted zipper of the bag. When her eyes focused back in on the contents of the bag, she nearly dropped her bag. _Nearly_.

“Oh god,” she whispered, letting her arm fall momentarily before she crawled her way back to the edge of the bag. With her back to the edge of the bed, she let her head fall onto the musty cover. “That bag.”

The doorknob jiggled and she scrambled to her feet, holding the gun uneasily towards the door. In stepped the curly haired freak who she’d been longing to see since the intruder had entered.

“Whoa girlie, put the gun down! Where’d you get that thing?” Dan asked, staring at her as he held his hands up in innocence.

It took far longer than Suzy would have liked to admit to remember who he was and she lowered her arm, loosening her hold on the gun until it slipped from her dainty fingers. Her eyes poured over and stung and burned with raw emotion as Dan wrapped his arms around her. She pushed an arm out of his grasp to vaguely motion towards the still-open bag on the ground and Dan’s body slackened in awe.

“W-where’d you get that?” he said, his voice barely audible in the deafening silence of the room.

“The bag,” seemed to be the only thing she was able to utter under the tears that stained her red cheeks. “They came for it? Who?”

She shook her head; she honestly didn’t know _who_ he was but she knew now what he came for. And she had ran him off. Did that mean that - how much was it? $10,000?- was hers? She couldn’t even fathom having that much to her name.

“Suzy,” Dan was talking slow, carefully picking every word he spoke. “How did you get this money?”

“It was given to me,” she admitted, feeling as if she weren’t telling the whole truth. “I didn’t know what it was, Dan! He just-he came to get it back and I’m like, duh! Of course it had to be something bad, like I feel really dumb and we were fighting and-”

Dan cut her off by rifling through the bag, picking up a stack and flipping through it. “There’s gotta be at least a couple of thousand here,” he said, turning to look at her. “We’ve struck gold.”

“We have?”

“If we deposit these in banks along the way, we can have enough money for a place once we get to LA.”

He had said we. ‘ _We can get a place’_. Were they going to live together? When had he decided that he wanted her along for the long haul? He probably wouldn’t be able to answer that question but he could have estimated somewhere between their heart to heart in the first hotel room and the first time they kissed.

Suzy didn’t know if she was ready to move in with him though. What if she turned out to hate him? Or worse...he turned out to hate her? She was so afraid to commit to someone after what happened in her last relationship.

Everything was amazing and she was worry free. In love and in paradise, he let her fall back to earth with bone crushing speed. Suzy was too afraid to trust someone to catch her again and it had been a year she had so unknowingly fell. Where would she run if she made the same mistake? New York? Canada? None of these places held the same prospect of opportunity as Los Angeles and none of these places would allow her to grow and blossom once more. She was tired of being dead and dry.

“We?” she whispered, her lips numb and barely moving.

“I-if you want to of course,” Dan corrected and silently he cursed himself and his preemptive thoughts. Perhaps she didn’t like him as he had originally thought.

“I…” Suzy shook her head harshly, reddish hair flying into her vision. “I’ll think on that.”


	9. Vemödalen/Morii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vemödalen: the frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already  
> Morii: the desire to capture a fleeting experience

The car was hot and the quiet roar of the air conditioner was the only noise in the otherwise silent space. The nighttime surrounded them and the calming sound of the nearby highway called something in both of their chests. Something stirred - it was unrecognizable and intrusive - and they both felt the need to speak before the moment escaped them.

“So -”

“I think -”

“No, no, ladies first.”

“It’s nothing important, you can talk first.”

Everything was hushed in the near nonexistent space between them. They searched actively for the others gaze in the dark yet found difficulty in doing so; the moonlight only highlighted a strip of Dan’s mouth through its narrow window filter.

Dan’s breath was audible and slightly staggered. “Suzy,” he began, closing his eyes to gather courage before opening them again. “Do you...want to stay with me?”

It was the first mention of the topic since the week before, after what they agreed to only call _The Bag Incident_. Dan felt a sudden coldness wash over his hands and arms despite the warmth surrounding him and he wished he was able to gauge Suzy’s face.

“I guess you aren’t too terrible to be around.” She was joking and he sighed, relieved and tense from the preceding anxiety.

“Oh thank god,” he laughed, his words breathy and light. His hand extended forward to where he could see the outline of her face and he gently graced the softness of her cheek. She pressed her face further into his hand and he leaned forward to kiss her.

She hesitated in reciprocating the action before tentatively pushing herself closer to him. She broke it off after a while, flustered and embarrassed before whispering, “I’m kinda tired.”

“Want me to sing you a lullaby?” She laughed quietly and Dan marveled at the sound and even at the sight. She seemed to glow in the dark.

“All for free? I must be really special,” Suzy giggled and she shifted closer to him. “I’d love to hear a lullaby although I may be distracted by your voice.”

He shook his head, laughing, and launched into a slow meander of a song.

* * *

 

Suzy awoke to a racing heart and raging heat as her eyes landed on the muddy grays of Dan's smoke stained roof. She looked to the empty seat beside her that sat up instead of down and she freaked. Anxiety washed over her like a current as her eyes flitted to the unfamiliar surroundings. Where was she? More importantly, where was Dan?

The world seemed to slow down dramatically and her ears rang in a high pitched tone as her mind registered the words of the building she was parked outside of. She was acutely aware of her heart beat and a tearless sob burst from her chest.

_Police station._

He had left her there, god she couldn't _believe_ she had trusted him! He-he had just abandoned her there, for what? For her to just return home and suffer through the memories? He hated her enough to leave the car there.

She felt faint and her chest tightened as she laid back against the seat once more. She curled within herself and brushed away the hair from her eyes as, slowly and with determination, a tear rolled down her face.

Suzy was jarred back to reality upon hearing the door slam and her gaze flicked to the prominent smirk of her lover.

“You're awake! You had me worried,” he joked and his tone was as jovial as ever. His expression slipped to concern as he saw the beads of sadness that threatened Suzy's water line as she sat up, wordless. “Are you oka-”

“I thought you'd left me.” The thought dawned in her mind and her body was wracked with aggressive convulsions as she dived into his arms, sobbing.

“Oh babygirl,” his voice was berry sweet and tender. “Babygirl I wouldn't leave you for the world. I was just making a call in the library.”

He motioned behind himself and Suzy sniffled, wiping her dripping nose with the back of her gloved hand. A smile cracked past her lips wryly and she laughed once, twice, harder before exhaling harshly.

“Wake me up next time. _Please_.” There was something in her voice that suggested that her statement wasn't a suggestion, rather a demand.

* * *

 

“You ever have the urge to jump off? To know what it's like to fly?”

Dan laughed uncomfortably, casting a worrying glance at Suzy in the pale moonlight. He had never fantasized of launching himself into the deep abysmal of the Grand Canyon and he prayed that he never would. “Wanting to fly and wanting the adrenaline of suicide are two different things, Suze.”

“Well, duh,” she scoffed, her eyes rolling dramatically. “I don't wanna die. That much anyway. I just think it would be nice to go soaring and really _see_ everything. To see things that have never been seen.”

“Everything's been seen before.” There was an innate frustration behind Dan's eyes as he raised the camera he had previously sat down. “Here, look pretty. I want to keep this memory.”

“Aren’t I always?” Her cocky demeanor was counteracted by the faint dusting of her cheeks.

“You're right but hey, a bootleg copy of you may pop up one day and I will have to see who's the real Suzy.” Dan was joking but something in Suzy's stance changed. She crossed her arms over her chest and although she remained smiling, something was tighter about it; her lips lost color momentarily from the tight line they had formed into.

“Well it's a bit late for that,” she quips and her sentence falls into a sugary version of its former self. The simultaneous gesture was accompanied by a quirk of Dan's eyebrow and Suzy's explanation. “I have a twin.”

He reared back, eyes wide before leaning forward enthusiastically. His speech delved into questions about herself and she shifted uncomfortably but undoubtedly closer to him to answer the flood.


	10. Keyframe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keyframe: a moment that seemed innocuous at the time but ended up marking a diversion into a strange new era of your life

Suzy didn't expect anyone to answer the line when she first called the phone number she had inscribed on her heart. To be honest, they hadn't answered and she was more than willing to leave the attempt at reconciliation at that. Dan's persistence that she reconnect with her family was the only driving force that lead her to calling once more.

There was a near silent voice on the other line, quiet and whispery. “Hello?”

“Mom?” The line followed by a shout for her father and Suzy winced at the relieved tone of her mother’s voice, as if she'd been waiting by the phone for the near year and a half that Suzy had been gone.

The reconciliation was terse and long winded, only relaxing for the small jokes that let Suzy's voice fall into a quiet laugh. Her finger stayed revolving in the cord to the phone and she could feel her skin cooking itself to a reddish tone as her mother asked who she was staying with.

“I met a guy-”

“A guy? Who is he? Is he nice? What's his name? How long have you been staying with him? Well that was a dumb question, it's obvious how long.” Suzy's mind swirled into a sweet fuzz, akin to something like choco-vanilla swirl but similarly unalike in all aspects.

She cast a glance at Dan who was sleeping on their dingy couch near where she sat and smiled softly. “His name is Danny,” she told her mom, and her mother could hear the shift in her voice into that childish sweetness that she had first had when she met Arin. “He's the nicest guy ever, he uh, he helped me get to California. Gosh, Mom, I think I'm in love with him.”

The loud gasp and Suzy’s overwhelming giggling laughter is what made Dan peek an eye open to look at her. His adoring gaze was lost as Suzy continued to speak quietly into the phone.

“I wouldn't mind being with him for a few more lifetimes - well, _no Mom_ , I'm not pregnant! I'm nineteen for Christ’s sake!” She leaned back against the chair and scrunched her nose up. “Okay so I'm twenty, ages are hard to remember. The point of the story is I won't become a mom until I'm ready! Mom - Mom! I don't even know if he wants kids…”

Dan had to remember to bring that up to her; he was neutral on the subject so it was entirely up to her. It was her life too - their life, was together now. However he knew that had she gotten pregnant at this time, it would significantly impact their current income. Being a model, while only a part time job, was still enough to sustain their high cost lifestyle; Dan knew the hidden desperation of models who couldn't land a booking once they'd had their chance. He knew how much this job meant to her.

“So when do you plan on coming home?” The question reverberated in the hollowness of Suzy's heart and caused her to skip a few beats.

Suzy's breath hitched in her throat and she found herself curling in again. “I-I don't,” she admitted faintly and she could hear the tears threatening to fall over her mother’s eyes. “Mom, please don't cry - Mom - I'm sorry, I love…” The dial tone of being hung up on rang in her chest like a burden. “...you.”

“She hung up?” Dan asked when he saw his girlfriend’s dejected expression.

Her gaze shifted from staring at nothing to staring at him as she nodded. He opened his arms wide and she crawled on top of him, staining his skin with her tears.

* * *

 

“I swear to God, it's driving me crazy!” Suzy said, tossing her head back against the pillow once she rolled from atop Dan.

“Well have you answered it?” Dan was propped up on his side now, looking at her as her eyes roamed over the expanse of his chest.

Her hands slid from the front to his back and she rolled her eyes. “Duh Sherlock! Whenever I answer they hang up! We really should change our number.”

“And what would that do?” He asked, stopping her hands mid travel by grabbing her wrist. “If they were determined enough to call everyday for several days, what's to stop them from finding our number?”

A pout formed on the fullness of her bottom lip and Suzy had to agree. To call everyday for what seemed like weeks to her, _several times_ a day had to express some determination on the callers part.

“Well,” she began, her eyebrows falling over hers in a way that expressed her confusion. “What should we do?”

“Answer and demand they speak,” Dan responded resolutely, letting his grip of her wrist slacken significantly. “If they don't, well, hell. We'll figure something out.”

She wasn't exactly at ease but she really did appreciate his attempt at comforting her. Dan was something especially amazing to her; it was almost as if his presence had some therapeutic properties.

It was at this moment that the phone rang again and her legs urged her to roll out of bed and answer.

She picked up with a click. She could hear his voice before he spoke and once more she felt scared and alone; she could feel the entire toll of the journey begin to break her once more. She wanted Danny to hold her and swear to never leave. She wanted Arin to call her babygirl and tell her what had happened. She was scared and confused and she was a child all over again.

“Hello?” The voice was familiar and seemed unrecognizably grating on her soul. “Suzy?”

A choked half gasp, half sob broke the silence on her side. “Arin?”

Suzy had never told Dan the name of her old boyfriend, but, hearing the sensitivity in how she seemingly pronounced each letter of his name wrenched something in his gut. He was close behind her when she doubled over, tears in her eyes and cracks breaking every word she spoke. His hands hovered, unable to decide if touching her was worth it.

She hung up the phone without a goodbye and collapsed, fully now, into Dan's waiting embrace. Her mind was frenzied and indefinite, images of Arin flashing through her head and making her convulse more. He hadn't died as she had suspected which left one conclusion - he had left her.


	11. Keta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keta: a memory that leaps back into your mind from the distant past.

Dan rocked into Suzy, slowly, deliberately and she gasped noiselessly. Her fingers would have clawed at his back had the nails been prominent and not been bitten down ritualistically; instead she grasped almost frantically at the angular fleshiness of his back and sides.

His grunts and groans were soft, low, they were hushed in the glowing light of the early morning. Her moans - more akin to squeaks and breathy pleads - were hushed by his lips falling onto hers sweetly as he continued his steady rhythm.

He was sleepy fucking her, too aware of his yearning ache for her to notice the dull look in the one eye of hers that remained open. He hadn't noticed her grip slipping from around his neck and he didn't notice the lifeless way they fell to her sides.

What he had noticed however was the saltiness that slid down the sides of her face into the now dark entanglement of her hair. He hadn't exactly computed that she was _crying_ until he slowed down, his thrusts sputtering like fault motors.

Suzy hadn't been attempting to think of anything except for the way Dan hovered over her. _Hovering_? He had become her secret protector. Her mind flickered once to her past in this position - splayed out and vulnerable - and she could feel her face contort uncomfortably.

“Are you okay?” Dan asked breathlessly, his eyes fixated on the darkness where the ceiling should have been. He was laying beside her and their differences in breathing showed that she had not been present.

Instead of replying, she shook her head and curled into him. She let him twirl a finger in her hair, all the while focusing on the tensing of his muscles at each rotation. He could feel the rapid flow of her emotions as they gave him goosebumps upon landing on his skin. He felt terrible.

“Wanna tell me what's wrong?”

She sniffled once, a small lonely noise that drew them closer to each other. “I...um…” The embarrassment she felt reddened her cheeks and she was too afraid to speak. What would Dan think of her? “Fuck, I started thinking of-of Arin and I just wanna know why? Why did he leave me?”

Dan's heart tightened at those words and however reassuring her grip on his thin frame was, he still felt like recoiling from her. Maybe he didn't understand; Dan never was the type for mourning lost loves. Was he not enough for her?

Anxiety leaked into the fluid lining his spine and he felt paralyzed, unable to formulate an answer for her. Had she known what thoughts beat mercilessly at Dan's confident demeanor, perhaps Suzy would have let go; but she didn't and she never would if he remained non vocal.

Feelings of shame drowned Dan and filled his lungs as Suzy continued to ramble at her own expense. He felt a bit crumpled and a bit dirty; Dan felt like the used kleenex that was to be thrown away soon enough. Why had Arin left her?

“Babe,” his voice was grating and low, “do you want him back?”

Of course she did, she had wanted him alongside her for the entirety of her life prior to meeting him. She wanted the thickness of his arms and the slight smell of sweat encompassing her in the long nights to anywhere. She wanted anything at this point in her life and that was not meant to undermine the entanglement taking place in the early morning late night of Los Angeles.

“Why would I?” She was avoiding the question and hoping he wouldn't press the matter. She could have gone hours detailing the reasons why she would and it disgusted her how Arin's voice rang in her ears like the ghost of who she once was and who she had lost. She wanted to feel nothing for the past but she knew that she was her own past and it was never that easy for someone to let go of themselves.

“Suzy please.” The wanton desperation in Dan's voice only amplified the guilt that was wracking her body upon hearing the unsteadiness of his pulse.

“Nevermind, it isn't important.” Dan frowned. It was incredibly important and Suzy was so damn afraid; she was afraid of facing her unbudging emotions, she was afraid of saying the wrong thing; she was afraid of not being able to express himself.

“ _Suzy_.” His voice was demanding something of her that was so close yet so far out of her reach. The extinguisher to the fire of her roaring mine was just a rigged claw game’s grasp away and she was shaking.

“I don't know what I want,” she admitted, looking nowhere in particular. It hurt to speak. l don't think I want him. I've - I just want to know _why_.”

Something in her voice was unidentifiable and tangible, healing the cracks beginning to swell in Dan's chest. “Then ask him. Face to face, Suze.”

She pushed away from him quickly, the headboard clicking against the hollow wall. He could vaguely make out her face against the brightness illuminating her. Her eyes were wild and pleading; he'd only seen her like that when she was discovered on the border. “What?”

“Let's meet him out here, you can figure it out better then.” He was commanding in his words and defiance welled in Suzy before he continued. “Obviously talking to him on the phone is impersonal - you need to see him.”

“I don't want to -”

“You have to,” he demanded and he looked at the back of her head. She had laid down aggressively and turned her back to him, trying to end the conversation. “It's tearing you up!”

“Dan, why are you trying to bring up the past?” She was digressing and Dan seemed to inhale a bit longer than intended. Looking at him over her shoulder, they shared a silence.

He leaned forward to speak more quietly than before, whispering, “Because that past is affecting your future.”

Suzy's jaw shifted and tensed, her eyebrows drawn over the now dullness of her eyes before she flipped back over. Her expression remained fixed as she tried to sleep once more.

* * *

 

Arin had never been acutely aware of the sound clocks made or the difference in atmospheric humidity between two well known vacation spots as he sat in the dining room. His whole frame seemed to sink with the heaviness of memories of the smell that lingered in the air.

The shuffling in the other room did little to ease his discomfort, neither did the voices that seemed to fight for who could be the loudest but maintain its indistinguishability.

“Fine!” Arin's heart raced more than it had when she had actually picked up the phone several weeks beforehand. Her voice in person had been lost on him for however long he was gone and to hear in person...it wasn't stating anything spectacular that he had missed her. To Arin, her voice sounded raw with emotion, hardened from herself so much that he nearly didn't recognize her.

He stood from his seat as Suzy entered. His breath stole from within him as she stood in the doorway in a state that he hadn't anticipated. He had heard how choked up she had been when they first spoke and he half expected her to run into his arms desperately. He hadn't known that he now faced a woman too proud to show her weakness to those who she deemed unworthy.

“Wow,” he breathed into the thick setting. Suzy was standing, unmoving and visibly sickened by his presence in her own home. Her eyes glanced back at Dan and they seemed to swear aloud. Arin's hot gaze on her landed over the pale expanse of her skin and trailed over the complicated fabric. Her fingers, ever dainty and small, played with the fabric on the back of her dress, somewhere where he couldn't see it.

Dan mouthed something to her but her gaze had blurred out of coherence before she could read him clearly.

“Suzy?” Arin's voice echoed in her head like a tome of their past.

She looked at him and the icy gaze had Arin shift in the cushioned seat that Dan had led him to.

“Arin.” She did not want to greet him because greetings usually were good. She felt nothing but betrayal when she looked at the face that she had tried so feebly to erase from her mind.

“Please let me explain -” He stopped mid sentence, expecting her to interject, to break down, to snap at him. He didn't expect the blank stare that she gave him from the doorway as she sighed and took the seat across from him.

“Well?” Her eyes were boring into him now, unblinking and they were swimming within his conscience, stirring something within him.

“I didn't want to hurt you anymore by staying,” he said and although her face didn't change, she sat up straighter. “I know how much my...lifestyle was hurting you. I did what was best for you.”

Suzy felt the urge to cry initially, she really did but that urge shifted into pure anger within a split second. How dare he claim to know what was best for her? He didn't know how much she loved him, obviously, she would have stayed with him through anything and that was of her own accord.

She pushed out of the seat in a split of a second, the wood clattering into the counter behind herself loudly. Arin choked as he look at her figure, standing before him, leaning onto the table as if she were restraining the urge to fill the air with the sulfuric toxicity of her emotions.

“You don't get to decide what is best for me, Arin!” It was the first full sentence she had said to him in several years. It was full of acid and malice and it was the first genuine statement she said without having to confront herself first. “You're a fucking coward; y-you left me when I needed you most!”

He was taken off guard and his eyebrows lowered as he attempted to defend himself. “Do you know how much it hurt me to just leave you?” He questioned her, gripping the edge of the table for support as her eyes dissected his face into the parts of him that she hated. “I did it for you! You have no right to get mad at me, I'm back now aren't I? Why aren't you letting me explain myself?”

“...and you just want me to hop in your arms again? Arin, you hurt me, _so_ fucking much...you don't get to explain yourself anymore!”

He kept speaking over her and unfortunately, he could bellow his rage in a way that she could only root hers like a heavy seeded apple tree where the apples were only rotten and too sweet. She was seething by the time Dan decided to enter unnoticed and she let out a screech.

“Ugh, god!” she fumed, her hands launching into the air as the room silenced. “Get the hell out of my house! I wish you'd never appeared again, you'd be better off dead like I thought you were!”

“Suze, c'mon you're being irrational,” Dan murmured and she turned her cold scowl to face him. “Actually continue.” His meekness prompted her to swallow down her anger and look at Arin's flushed face and heavy breathing. He'd grown some facial hair since they'd last been together but was otherwise unchanged.

“I think it'd be best if you left,” she managed to express through gritted teeth. Her head was pulsing and aching from the pressure on her to stave off her tears. “We can - I don't know Arin. Maybe we’ll talk again soon. Just not now.”

He stood up on two unsteady feet without as much as a question asked and left, leaving behind the brown leather of his coat. 


	12. Kairosclerosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kairosclerosis: The moment you realize that you're currently happy—consciously trying to savor the feeling—which prompts your intellect to identify it, pick it apart and put it in context, where it will slowly dissolve until it's little more than an aftertaste

_She was never worried when Arin went some time without contacting her although she had every reason to be. He had been gone days at a time so, while excessive, the first week went by without suspicion._

_Her calls to his house were met with silence and a dial tone, as if he were ever busy. She only thought that he was still troubled by their fighting the week before, and she was far too oblivious to recognize that even her calls to his parents had never reached them._

_“Did I do something wrong?” she asked her brothers once a month had passed. Where had he gone, that poor loverboy? She blamed herself for overreacting so damn much! She couldn't help it though, Arin had gotten in with some really nasty people and even if he didn't see it, they were tearing him apart!_

_He had already dropped out of school and he insisted that with his life he'd have to make money somehow - Suzy wasn't that dumb however, she knew that he lived for the rush. He just… cut her off though. She was too dumb to know it._

_It had been nearly two years before she realized that staying where he'd touched her had been pointless. Being without him where she was, in and of itself, was pointless._

_Selling that dumb, expensive engagement ring he'd given her when they were only sixteen, she left just as he had: without a word and without a trace to the people who cared about her most. She'd dived so headfirst into her depression that she didn't believe that they did care about her. She wasn't sure if that was an assurance that she'd ever comfortably have back._

Her fork had collided with the plate for the sixth time in a slow row and Dan had placed a loose hand on hers.

“Suze.” His eyes were soft when she finally gathered the nerve to look at him. “Are you still thinkin’ about him? Still mad?”

“I'm okay,” she told him and while it wasn't even remotely close to the truth, it was the only word she could have used to describe the level of nameless disassociation that she was experiencing.

“Are you really?” He couldn't feel her pulse in her wrist anymore.

“I don't know, dude.” She pulled her wrist away and pushed the chair away from the table. “I'm thinking.”

“What about?” Suzy could read the tone of his voice in the open air as clear as day.

“What I want. How I got here.” She looked at him before pulling her feet up onto the chair with her, resting her chin atop her knees. “...why it hurts so much.”

“Doll,” he murmured, watching her tuck her head into her knees.

“It's just that I wouldn't be here if it weren't for him,” she said, clearer yet still something about her words made them muddy. “I wouldn't be who I am now. And I hate him for it.”

Dan tried to interject, to prompt her to clarify her statements so he could really attempt to help her but she seemed to not be speaking to him anymore, instead at him.

“What made him think _leaving_ was the right thing to do?” She shook her head and her hair fell into her eyes. “D’you know I blamed myself for three years? I thought he was dead and I blamed myself.”

“Why would you do that?” Dan still didn't know the situation besides what he'd gathered from the brief passing mentions during long road trips.

“Because,” she said and she wiped her nose quickly on the back of her hand. “I thought he'd overdosed on some party drugs or something.”

“That has nothing to do with you-”

“But it does!” She was looking directly at him and embarrassment faded over her. “I - fuck, you're gonna hate me for this - I introduced him to that crowd of people and he just, Dan, he spiraled so fast. It was like a tornado where one second he was sober and functioning and the next he was on a first name basis with the EMTs!”

She passed a hand over her eyes, smudging the rings of darkness that she'd put on earlier in the day.

“Maybe you should tell him that?” Dan suggested and if she were to admit it, she was getting increasingly bothered by his therapeutic attitude.

Suzy had found herself in a dead reckoning after all, and she tried for far too long to correct the mistakes that she had never actually made. His death, no, his disappearance had done something to her that could never be corrected with her own two hands, or even his, for they were stained red with the memories of her husband to be. He had outlined their lives and she was stuck, lost without his presence to fill in the rest of the outline.

“Maybe,” she said and stood from the chair. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and tilted her head towards their bedroom. “I'm gonna lay down for a bit okay?”

Dan nodded although okay was the last word he'd have used to describe the inexplicable emotions he was feelings.


	13. Kudoclasm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kudoclasm: when lifelong dreams are brought down to earth

The staticky other line played quietly on the secrecy of the three way call.

“I really don't know if I should try to talk to her again,” Arin admitted into the phone, a noise repeating in the background of the call. It sounded mechanical, almost like a pencil swinging freely against the metal rings of a sketchbook. “She seemed pretty set on what she feels about me.”

Dan was shifting nervously while standing in the living room, his clothing being picked up by both parties of the call. “Oh c’mon,” he urged, laughing less to ease Arin's tension and more to ease his own trembling hands. “You flew out here to just give it one shot.”

“No, fuck… listen, dude-” he sounded as if he held something loosely between the crook of his teeth. “-I'm only out here for another day or two. If she wants to meet, sure, I will, but she wants me dead!”

Suzy rolled her eyes at him casually as she eavesdropped in the room opposite where Dan was. Ironically, she believed Arin to be the dramatic one.

“Great, she's free tonight, meet me at the eat-in near our place, yeah?”

Suzy coughed at the suggestion, startling both parties as she pulled the phone away from her mouth. She hated when Dan created plans that she had nearly no time to get ready for.

“You alright?” Arin's voice carried a wave of concern and Suzy frowned, not batting an eye at Dan's fake coughs.

“Y-yeah,” he said, clearing his throat repeatedly. “So does six sound alright?”

“Uh, fuck, sure,” Arin agreed albeit reluctantly. “Six near your place. Gotcha.”

With the call ending, Suzy peeked her head through the doorway and narrowed her eyes at Dan.

“What?” He asked, settling onto the worn couch.

“Tonight?” Dan opened his mouth to protest but she held a hand up, shaking her head with closed eyes. “I'll go get ready.”

* * *

 

“I want to begin by apologizing,” Arin murmured, too stunned by the pale glow of Suzy's visage to look directly at her. Even when terrible, he treated her like an angel.

“I would too,” she added, her eyes fixated on the way his thick hands tore apart small slices of bread as if their spongy delicacy was not to be preserved. She was subconsciously juxtaposing the thin, bones of Dan's hands with the calloused masculinity of Arin's. Dan's daintiness treated her kindly. “I shouldn't have snapped on you like I did.”

“Heh, you had reason to,” he reassured, looking up at her from beneath the dark webbing of his eyelashes. “Abandoned for years just to get over it and have it brought back up… you deserve to punch me.”

She knew she was correct to feel how she did, her validity was never questioned but she felt severely manipulative for displaying her emotions in the way she did. “I deserve to listen to you although,” she leaned forward, the small candle beneath her highlighting the sharpness’ in her otherwise soft face. “...I really don't want to.”

Arin, again, was taken aback - something he was getting used to around her. “Goosey, look, I'm sorry, I _really_ am.” He had grabbed her hand and her confidence seized in the pit of her stomach. The nickname didn't serve any helpful purpose either.

“I was dumb-”

“Yeah.”

“-and I wasn't thinking-”

“Obviously.”

“And I let you down.”

“You did.”

“Will you stop that?” He asked and she looked into the dark browns of his eyes. Seeing her own reflection in those pools, she swallowed harshly and looked at the woven fabric above the table. It had the same pattern as the dress she'd worn before - flower, swirl, dot. It was pretty.

“Are you listening to me?” Arin said and his grip on her hand tightened. “I want to get straight, Suzy. I want you to be there, by my side.”

“Wh-what are you saying?” She knew what he was saying but she wanted him to be forthright with her, she _needed_ him to be.

“I want to give this another shot. I want to give… us another shot,” he spoke lowly and Suzy stiffened in her seat.

Her head swiveled to look at Dan who was outside the window of the restaurant, sitting in the car and only illuminated by the light within. He was reading and looked to be humming something.

“What do you say?” Arin asked, glancing in the same direction at her before leaning to attempt to get her to look at him. “Be my Goosey Suzy again?”

She was breathing from her mouth silently but the puffs of pressed air expelled from her near violently. She had been yearning for years to get Arin back, to go back to her life and how he had outlined it for her. Realistically, she knew there would never be going back. She was not the same person that he knew.

She thought back to when she'd asked Dan if he ever wanted to jump off the Grand Canyon like she had; her mind was backflipping off edges repeatedly and she didn't know if she was ready to stay stuck again. The whole point of her leaving, besides escaping her past, was to start anew and live her life for herself.

Being with Arin was not freeing, she knew that much without needing careful deliberation. But was being with Dan? Was he really her American Dream? - He took her away and she always knew that had she needed to, she could vanish without a trace.

Suzy looked at Arin and her lips parted to say something before closing again. She huffed in frustration and pulled her hand away from his to run through her hair. How had he gotten here? Not literally but, why? After all these years, why did he still cling to her as if she were a constant in the changing variability of his life. Here they sat, miles away from where they once were in their lives together and Suzy felt trapped all over again. It was as if he was a predator and she, his travelling prey, always lying in wait to satisfy his needs.

Did she want to be hunted forever? Why did she dash away from home?

“I want to…” she said, tone hushed and unreadable as the beginnings of a smile pulled on Arin's face. “But I can't.” She could hear the glass around his heart shatter violently and she looked anywhere but at him. Her eyes fixated on the suede of her dress and the crocheted work on her scarf as she spoke.

“But Suzy,” he whined, leaning forward as he yearned for her. She held onto the deeply disturbing yet vivid image of him as a child reaching out for her and desperate. She would pick him up and tediously teach him the basic social skills needed to form interpersonal relationships before setting him on her lap. He fed from her emotional reserves like a baby leaching parasitically onto its mother’s breast and she swallowed her emotions. “I love you! I need you, Suzy!”

“I love you too, but I do not need you,” she said and her voice wobbled with inconsistency as she tried to ignore the sickening choking sound of someone attempting to breathe through their pain. “I know someone else will love you, that's how it works but…”

She steeled her nerves and stilled her heart before looking deeply into the glossy expanses of chocolate in his eyes. She couldn't find herself trapped within the glassy eyes that she had needed near her anymore.

“...but that person isn't gonna be me.” Her words were defiant and definite. She looked at him and no longer saw her husband to be, she saw him for the broken boy that he was.

She stood from the table and made her way out of the restaurant, ignoring his muffled sobs in favor of her own.

“What happened?” Dan asked, not bothering to look up at her as she sat in the car, causing it to dip only slightly with the weightlessness of memories lifted from her shoulders.

“Don't worry about it,” she said and he looked at her, raising both eyebrows before nodding.

They drove in silence save for the distant drone of music much too outdated to still frequent the radio stations they had programmed. It lingered like this until they settled in bed together, laying comfortably upon one another in the dark security of the night.

“He asked you to stay with him huh?” Dan asked, to which Suzy only nodded, her face sliding against his bare chest. “And judging by how we're cuddled up, you said no.”

“He cried,” she murmured into him. “I don't feel bad.”

“No?” He was surprised by the calmness in her voice.

“He promised me forever and tried to reclaim it when I've started living for the present,” she answered and the slight slur in her words showed that she was not fully coherent. “You make me...me. I'd only wanna grow more with you.”

“Do you…” he inhaled before continuing. “Do you wanna get married?”

“Huh,” she hummed, shifting to look up at him. He looked down at her and the nerves welled in his gaze. Her mind fluttered back to the first time he made her smile, to their first kiss, to nights spent freely on the open road with nothing but their breathing to accompany them. “I don’t-I don't think that would be the best idea.”

Something within Dan changed and she could not place it but it differed from the shattering she'd seen in Arin.

“I…” she breathed deeply and could smell the slight stickiness of his body beneath hers. “I'm scared of commitment, you know, dude? This is good and well but I don't want to trap myself…or you.”

She paused and when he didn't speak she continued. “I feel like I've just ended my life with Arin, I feel like I'm still coping. Marriage would kill us right now, the title is what traps us. Besides, a year isn't enough time for me.”

“What about sleeping?” He wanted her to stop talking.

“That's a commitment I can make,” she said and kissed the patch of hair on his chest before laying back down. “Just not… us, as crappy as that sounds. I'm a kid still Dan, we have forever.”

“A forever without calling us a forever, huh?” He asked and received a snort in return. “I can take that.”


End file.
